Breadcrumb

Ralph Waldo Emerson: V

V

Mask thy wisdom with delight,Toy with the bow, yet hit the white,As Jelaleddin old and gray;He seemed to bask, to dream and playWithout remoter hope or fearThan still to entertain his earAnd pass the burning summer-timeIn the palm-grove with a rhyme;Heedless that each cunning wordTribes and ages overheard:Those idle catches told the lawsHolding Nature to her cause.

God only knew how Saadi dined;Roses he ate, and drank the wind;He freelier breathed beside the pine,In cities he was low and mean;The mountain waters washed him cleanAnd by the sea-waves he was strong;He heard their medicinal song,Asked no physician but the wave,No palace but his sea-beat cave.

Saadi held the Muse in awe,She was his mistress and his law;A twelvemonth he could silence hold,Nor ran to speak till she him told;He felt the flame, the fanning wings,Nor offered words till they were things,Glad when the solid mountain swimsIn music and uplifting hymns.

Charmed from fagot and from steel,Harvests grew upon his tongue,Past and future must revealAll their heart when Saadi sung;Sun and moon must fall amainLike sower's seeds into his brain,There quickened to be born again.

The free winds told him what they knew,Discoursed of fortune as they blew;Omens and signs that filled the airTo him authentic witness bare;The birds brought auguries on their wings,And carolled undeceiving thingsHim to beckon, him to warn;Well might then the poet scornTo learn of scribe or courierThings writ in vaster character;And on his mind at dawn of daySoft shadows of the evening lay.